“The Rains Came"

Northern Advocate, 27 April 1940, Page 12

“The Rains Came"

Hats off to Darryl F. Zanuck for his magnificent and faithful production of “The Rains Came,” the great Louis Bromfield novel, which 20th CenturyFox presents with Myrna Loy, Tyrone Power and George Brent starred at the head of a dazzling cast! Rarely has a famous book, which has been read and enjoyed by millions, been transferred to the screen with such devoted fidelity, such unsparing care and cost! The result gloriously justifies the effort. Here is a great film! All the fascinating characters of the book come to vivid life on the screen and every role is perfectly cast and brilliantly played, the evident result of the distinguished Clarence Brown’s superlative direction. Myrna Loy, looking more enchanting than ever, breaks with the “perfect wife” tradition to play the amorous Lady Esketh and she is superb. Tyrone Power is grand as the handsome, high-caste Hindu surgeon, Major Rama Safti, the first real love of Lady Esketh's romance-strewn life; and George Brent gives a splendid account of himself as the world-weary Tom Ransome. The colourful setting of Bromfield’s mythical city of Ranchipur. India, is realistically reproduced, and the awesome catastrophes that highlight the novel—the earthquake, the flood, the fire and the plague—are all reproduced with breath-taking effect. Indeed, in the opinion of this reviewer, there has never been anything in film history to match the spectacle scenes in “The Rains Came.”